Jan 10, 2007

When most people think about calories, they consider food, not drink. Yet beverages now account for about 20 percent of daily calories consumed by those 2 and older, according to Barry M. Popkin, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“When did we start to drink anything other than water and [as babies] breast milk?” asks Popkin, co-author of a system to help consumers make smarter choices about beverages. “We didn’t even have many caloric beverages 150 years ago, except a little bit of beer and a little bit of alcohol. We’re really talking about a new addition to the human race.”

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